yellowbinge's reviews
272 reviews

Publishing date: 02.12.2024
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. My opinions are my own. 

Usually these kinds of poems do work for me, not this one though. The blurb was fascinating, and I expected something similar in the book itself. Spoiler: It was not similar at all. 

Grotesque, direct, and lowkey nasty themes are usually my cup of tea. Not sure what the author used in their blend here, but it wasn't the kind I like. In the blurb it was mentioned that the book would be like "corn". I saw that, but it felt so tasteless. The sentence may start with god and then end with a phallus. This mix of religious imagery with "corn" was just not it. 

Sometimes the stream of consciousness writing works well. In this book it reads a little broken and drags on too long. Several poems could be boiled down to a few paragraphs with maybe three sentences each. Instead we get too many commas and too many words.

Final ranking and star rating? 
1 star, F tier. This was a big miss. My expectations were not met. Maybe my brain is too small to comprehend the brilliance here. But if there are fellow girls with the same sized brain, don't bother. It won't be what you expect.

Publishing date: 12.11.2024
Thank you to NetGalley and Fiction Collective 2 for the ARC. My opinions are my own. 

When I picked up this book I expected more of a "concrete" story with a very clear beginning, plot, and end. This seems more abstract than it is, and the writing style is mostly at fault. It has this verbose and conscious style. Like prying into the mind of someone who thinks too much. The story is both too personal and also not personal enough. 

I also think I expected something a little different. My expectation was a story where a person gets to observe more directly what effects climate change have and how women get treated for that.Yes, we do see a few cases of exactly that. But not enough. There isn't enough "women at fault" compared to what the blurb got me expecting. We do see how climate change affects the world, but even then it is reduced to an almost "normal". 
I just wanted more focus on these different themes. 

Otherwise, this is a weird book with weird themes and weird events. It is very much black and white. Filled with hypocrites and "bad" people. 

Final ranking and star rating? 
3 stars, B tier. Not really for me. I think this has a very specific audience it will click with, but I am not with them. I enjoyed my time with it. Not much more to say than that. 

Publishing date: 01.12.2024
Thank you to NetGalley and Amazon Original Stories for the ARC. My opinions are my own. 

This is my first Fredrik Backman book, and I am not sure if this represents the rest of his work properly. Something about this felt a little ... off? 
This is a comedy. Everything is on the nose. At a certain point it became absurd really. If you easily get second hand embarrassment or socially anxious from fiction, don't read this. These characters gave me several aneurysms.

Still, I did find the book funny. Not laugh-out-loud funny, but chuckle kind of funny. 

Final ranking and star rating? 
3 stars, C tier. This book was fine. Not what I expected of this author, but it has gotten me intrigued with the rest of his work. I think this might be a fine entrypoint if you have never read Backman, but I might be wrong. Cheap, short read. I recommend :--)  

Publishing date: 08.11.2024
Thank you to NetGalley and Querencia Press for the ARC. My opinions are my own. 

This was fine. I didn't really feel any specific way about it. I think I wasn't the intended audience. 
This collection is very American and explores multiple themes. Gender, grief, family, growing apart, trauma, and masculinity. 

I found the poems to be very abstract and "grey". It felt so dour. Some stylistic choices felt out of place or even distracting. The author clearly has a very specific mood and style in mind, I am just not sure if that is really my cup of tea. 

Final ranking and star rating? 
2 stars, D tier. Not really for me. 

Publishing date: 15.11.2024
Thank you to NetGalley and Querencia Press for the ARC. My opinions are my own. 

Saldy, this collection was not for me. I didn't connect with the work and didn't find the poems themselves to be anything fruitful. The collection explores themes of queerness, gender identity, grief, religion, and family. In theory, this should have been something for me. But it wasn't. 

I found the writing style to be a little juvenile and "blocky" if that makes sense. Just couldn't connect with it and found it a little hard to read and interpret properly. 

Final ranking and star rating? 
2 stars, D tier. Not for me. I don't think I was the intended audience. If you find any of the themes described interesting, then it will probably stick the landing. 

Publishing date: 01.01.2025
Thank you to NetGalley and Brian Koppen for the ARC. My opinions are my own. 

I am a little in-between about this collection. Here we have an almost 50/50 split of poems I enjoyed and poems that fell flat. 

Some of them were funny and absurd, others tried to be but failed. Some I didn't understand at all. I don't really have much to say about it. 

Final ranking and star rating? 
3 stars, C tier. This collection was simply fine. Not much to say. Some of the poems landed, others didn't. And that is completely fine. 

Favorite poems: 
Security Breach
In the Wild
Radio 
Magic Grow
Contraceptive

Publishing date: 01.11.2024
Thank you to NetGalley and Amazon Original Stories for the ARC. My opinions are my own. 

Here we have a short story that feels complete, has a great plot twist, and is full of tension and mystery. It does exactly what it needs to do. Made want to go through Hill's other works. Since I can't say much without spoiling, we will keep it short. 

Final ranking and star rating? 
4 stars, A tier. This was great. Entertaining little read. Recommended to everyone who appreciates a short little story. 

Publishing date: 12.11.2024
Thank you to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for the ARC. My opinions are my own. 

This is another entry in possibly my new favorite genre of poems: pictures, illustrations, and backgrounds with poems on top of it. They just feel so atmospheric and "extra" in a way that makes my brain tingle. This collection got my brain tingling in several ways. 

This collection follows every day events, routines, and people doing their thing. There is something so beautiful and comforting about it. This collection was a nice snug blanket reminding me that just surviving another day is okay. 

While it was comforting, I was also met with such a profound sense of dread. One of the collections speaks about our existence and how it and the universe will meet its end one day. This is such a bone deep fear in me that just that section alone got me spiraling. So be aware my fellow "existential dreaders".

Final ranking and star rating? 
5 stars, S tier. This was a great collection. It got me feeling things, and it was such a unique little book that I am wildly tempted to buy a physical copy and put it on my coffee table. I probably will. 
Highly recommend as a palate cleanser and a reminder of the beauties of our everyday life. 

Publishing date: 10.10.2024
Thank you to NetGalley and BookBuzz.net for the ARC. My opinions are my own. 

I adore underdog stories. They get me going. Cheering for someone who realistically can't win is so exciting. This is one of those stories. Except this is a battle of wits. 

Imagine that you can win whatever you want as long as you reinvent the wheel, but a board game. That is essentially what the story is. Present it to the king, impress him, and he will grant your wish. If you don't, you die. High stakes. 

I found their fighting back and forth about the game to be really tense and interesting. Except ... The inner monologue and the dumbed down version of the king being all "me me me" was a little boring. Just a tad. The main character clearly knows he is smart and flaunts it to the readers while acting humble for the king. The king is all about being king and being stubborn about it. That is his whole character. If he kept his composure and was less of a "unicorn" so to speak, I might have given it more credit. It is only a battle of wits if both participants use their brain. 

Final ranking and star rating? 
3 stars, B tier. This was entertaining. I read it in a single sitting and was consumed with it all the way through. Knowing it was only 24 pages helped with my focus of course. This is an easily recommended book, anyone can appreciate these kinds of works. 

Publishing date: 06.10.2024
Thank you to NetGalley and Atmosphere Press for the ARC. My opinions are my own. 

This was sadly not for me at all. I went in expecting something specific, and got something different.

I had expected more abstract poems. What I got instead was pretty straightforward chronicles of different peoples lives that ended up weaving into each other. Recently I have learned that chronicles that are just that and nothing else are really not for me. Even if this was a "little" bit abstract, it wasn't abstract enough in the chronicles. 

I found the shorter poems sprinkled throughout to be drowning away between the longer ones. Not really adding much to the collection. They were a nice break from the longer ones, but not much more than that. 

Final ranking and star rating? 
2 stars, D tier. This was simply not for me. I won't drag the book anymore through the mud. It might be for you, it might not. 
Overall, I expected something different, and that's okay. Not all of them are winners.